Thursday, January 15, 2004

Matt Stoller: "I will be periodically doing profiles of local candidates around the country who are trying to appeal to the new constituency groups that Dean and Clark have enabled to organize. This is part of a quest to understand whether there is a 'Dean generation' of politicians." There may indeed be a 'Dean generation' of politicians, but there is clearly going to be a new generation of campaigns that make use of online organizing and alternative media as pioneered by Dean and Clark, without necessarily trying to capture the outsider/insurgent vibe that has helped power those candidates. Here in North Carolina, Erskine Bowles will have the backing of a strong Democratic party and volunteer base. It will interesting to see how well his campaign can adapt online tools and constituencies to maximize the reach and impact of this existing organizational structure, without compromising the value of either the old or new way. Bowles himself seems pretty clueful and committed to a meaningful online effort, and his campaign is working seriously in that direction. Look for news on that front soon. 4:37:27 PM    comment []

Does Pat Robertson know about this? Pat says God favors Bush, but I just got a fundraising email from the Edwards campaign by Dean Smith... 1:09:17 PM    comment []

If George Bush is going to spend tax dollars to promote marriage, he should splash a little cash on the people who prove every day that marriage can work -- members of functional, longterm marriages. I call this critical demograhpic group the Married Establishment, better known by the acronym ME. When Lisa and I celebrate our fifteenth anniversary in June, will any of Bush's $1.5 billion be coming our way? A federally-funded night on the town would be nice way of saying, "Thanks for your role in preserving the cornerstone of civilized societies, which this administration values highly for everyone but homosexuals." Hey, a voucher for a babysitter would be welcome, but I bet we don't even get a card. It's like being an established company, and watching a newcomer get economic incentives to move to town. And what about people who really should not be married? We all know a few. Shouldn't Bush help the institution of marriage by paying some people to stay the hell out of it? And not that Britney needs the money, but maybe he could do something for her, too. Of course, rewarding people who make marriage work would get expensive -- as baby boomers age, more and more couples will require government assistance for any number of marriage-preserving items. Viagra alone could get its own line in the budget. Fortunately, being married to Lisa is its own reward. 12:53:42 PM    comment []

CJR Campaign Desk: Critique and analysis of 2004 campaign coverage from Columbia Journalism Review, is a new bloglike publication offering, well, critique and analysis of campaign coverage. So tell me -- is this quote from the site's managing editor, Steve Lovelady a clueless bit of old media snobbery, complete with a bogus statistic and implicit put-down of bloggers, or is it clever marketing to get the blogoshpere talking? Lovelady: "Most blogs are 99.9 percent opinion. This is a Web site run by and staffed by responsible journalists whose job is to monitor, critique and praise the campaign press, on a daily basis." (via Romenesko) I vote clueless old media snobbery. The site does have a menu item, "Blog Report," so I guess they'll be reading weblogs -- although I will be surprised if they read more than a handful of well known bloggers. Jeff Jarvis also lays down a welcome mat for the new site. 8:57:42 AM    comment []

I sold an ad on my weblog (right column). Or more to the point, Blogads sold an ad, or somebody bought an ad via Blogads. Whatever. I spent a few minutes at the Blogads site, and the next day I got an email saying that someone wanted to give me money. Click, click, cash. It's just one ad, I haven't met all my financial goals yet, but it's a good start. 8:44:18 AM    comment []